00:00This is Apropos.
00:04Four British women who've accused notorious influencer Andrew Tate of rape and coercive
00:09control have expressed concern about reports that the Trump administration has been petitioning
00:15Romania to ease his travel restrictions.
00:18The former kickboxer is under house arrest there on suspicion of rape and trafficking,
00:23which he denies.
00:24Bucharest claims that it has not come under any pressure to lift restrictions on his movements.
00:29James Vazina has the latest.
00:34It's with fear that Romanian authorities may be pressured by the United States that four
00:38women involved in separate cases have raised their concerns.
00:43After hanging up his gloves, former professional kickboxer and self-professed misogynist Andrew
00:48Tate turned to online platforms to encourage men to subscribe to an ultra-patriarchal framework
00:55with the belief that this will lead to a successful life.
00:59Together with his brother, he moved to Romania, growing their online presence and fortune,
01:04while critics have repeatedly warned of the influence that their content is having on
01:07young men.
01:11The British-American pair are currently being charged by Romanian prosecutors for human
01:15trafficking, sexual misconduct, money laundering and with starting an organised crime group.
01:22The brothers say that they're innocent and have recently been released from house arrest,
01:26but are forbidden from leaving the country.
01:29And this is where the Financial Times report comes in.
01:33The paper claims that US officials have reached out to the Romanian government with a request
01:37made to return the brothers' passports.
01:40The spokesperson for Romania's foreign minister has replied that the country's courts are
01:44independent and operate based on the law.
01:50The women who've expressed their concern about reported meddlings are accusing Andrew Tate
01:54of rape.
01:56Having brought a case to the High Court in the UK.
02:00Romania has granted a British request to extradite them once their cases in the country have
02:05concluded.
02:06For more on this story, let's cross live now to Australia, where Dr Stephanie Westcott
02:12is standing by for a special lecture at Monash University Faculty of Education.
02:17Stephanie, thanks so much for waking up so early to be with us this evening in Paris.
02:22Firstly, a British survey suggested just last month that Andrew Tate, we saw him in
02:28the report there, he's viewed positively by almost half of all young men.
02:34For people who may not be too familiar with this particular influencer, how to explain
02:39his appeal?
02:41I mean, it's pretty difficult to explain, honestly, for anyone who's viewed his content.
02:46It's highly offensive towards women.
02:49He's a dangerous individual, as these alleged charges against him suggest, but his appeal
02:56may be found in the way that he is able to speak to existing grievances among young men
03:03in particular.
03:04Some of those grievances are very real around, you know, taking charge of your economic future,
03:09economic security, but some of them play on really dangerous ideas about gender and about
03:15feminism, such as the idea that men need to take their power back, that women belong in
03:20the home, that men need to be in control in romantic relationships.
03:24So there's definitely something latently appealing about these ideas.
03:30But we need to be really careful about how we talk about Andrew Tate and whether or not
03:35we're willing to accept him as an emerging political figure.
03:40And do you think that these young men, they're influenced by his rhetoric or are they
03:45actually being driven towards him and towards other influencers of his ilk because they
03:50are already feeling alienated?
03:54They're actually being driven towards his content by algorithms in the first place.
03:58So there's a few studies now that confirm that a social media account on TikTok or even
04:05a YouTube account that belongs to a male person will be shown Andrew Tate content and other
04:13figures content, whether they choose to search for it or not, it will just appear on their
04:17phone. So they may just be innocently scrolling, looking for interesting content.
04:21All of a sudden they are exposed to these ideas about women, about men and masculinity,
04:28about feminism, about violence.
04:30And so there may be something initially appealing.
04:34There may be initial concerns or grievances among these young men, but they are being
04:37deliberately exploited by the social media companies through their algorithms and, of
04:41course, through these content creators themselves.
04:44And you say that Andrew Tate's success, it's a symptom of a much broader cultural shift.
04:50Can you explain that a little bit more for us?
04:53Yeah, so we've seen some really concerning regressions in ideas and acceptance around
04:58gender equality. It's sort of a bit of a post-MeToo backlash, feminist backlash.
05:03The very fact that Donald Trump has been elected to US presidency is a demonstration that
05:10women's rights and safety are under attack.
05:13We have argued, myself and my colleague Steve Roberts in our work, that the Manosphere,
05:17which is this network of very powerful men such as Joe Rogan, for example, Elon Musk,
05:23Donald Trump and other content creators online, are working together in a networked way to
05:28accrue political power and to support each other.
05:32And so we really need to be careful about that, especially with the spread of far right
05:37sentiment, the rise of fascism.
05:39And we're concerned about it in Australia, too, with our upcoming election.
05:42And are they deliberately mirroring tactics that we're seeing being used by the likes
05:47of Donald Trump, also Elon Musk?
05:51Absolutely. So we saw that once Donald Trump achieved electoral success in the most recent
05:57election, that Andrew Tate then began to talk about his own political aspirations and
06:02formed his own political party, which he called BRUV, which is actually an acronym,
06:07but is also a play on the British term of endearment.
06:11And he's capitalising on these sort of fascist and far right sentiments that have been
06:16quite successful in the American election and American political discourse.
06:21And he now has his own political aspirations.
06:24But it also makes sense that Donald Trump would want to be forgiving of Andrew Tate's
06:28alleged crimes, as Donald Trump himself has been accused of sexual misconduct and
06:32violence towards women.
06:34So what this is telling us is that women's concerns and women's safety are actually
06:38irrelevant to men's political aspirations.
06:41And why do you think that young men particularly are feeling so politically alienated?
06:46And do you know at all how women are reacting to influencers like Andrew Tate?
06:52It's a really interesting question why these men are appealing to young men in particular,
06:58especially when you can look at their content and easily dismiss it as extremist and
07:03offensive. As I mentioned before, there are some very real social and political and
07:08economic concerns among young people, but they are concerns that are affecting people of
07:13all genders. They're not just affecting young men.
07:17So some of it is actually the influence of deliberate disinformation.
07:21About men's position in society, about unequal advantage that is afforded to women and
07:27people of other genders and sexualities.
07:30So it's very much a victim narrative and an agreed entitled narrative that I think some
07:36people are finding very appealing.
07:38And of course, to young women and all women, actually, this is just blatantly dangerous and
07:42offensive. It's not possible to just say, well, some of Andrew Tate's ideas are actually
07:47good. I ignore the rest of it, because anyone who has a position that women are inherently
07:53inferior to men, we should just be able to broadly dismiss them and not accept some of
07:57their claims as acceptable.
07:58So it's a very dangerous time for women to see these men and their views legitimised in
08:04politics.
08:05And Stephanie, experts such as yourself say that the rise of this kind of misogynistic
08:10culture, it's fuelling a normalisation of harmful attitudes towards women.
08:15How exactly do you even begin to start tackling that?
08:21That is a great question and it's something that we're grappling with in our work.
08:25We think it's really important to begin in education, because this is where we're seeing a
08:30lot of this dangerous rhetoric manifest.
08:32In our research, we found that young men in schools in Australia and there's research
08:36elsewhere demonstrating that young men are starting to parrot some of these ideas and
08:40views. So we think it's actually important to treat this as disinformation and as
08:45the process of radicalisation that we're seeing occur and to combat this through a
08:51process of education and an education campaign, just like you would any other
08:55radicalisation process.
08:57And Stephanie, just finally, what are the specific dangers that beliefs like this are
09:02entering the mainstream, but it's also coming at a time where in a lot of countries
09:06around the world, public trust in democracy and in institutions is failing?
09:12Yeah, so it's co-occurring in this post-truth period where we're seeing increased
09:17scepticism towards known facts and trusted experts and institutions.
09:21And Andrew Tait absolutely plays on that.
09:23He encourages young men to escape what he calls the matrix, which is basically just a
09:29mainstream kind of life, having a job, paying tax, voting.
09:33It's sort of this idea that you can live this alternate lifestyle that's outside of, I guess,
09:38mainstream life and institutions and organisations.
09:42And we're also seeing that, of course, in America with some of the ideas that are being
09:46offered by people within that actual government institution.
09:52So it's very much riding the wave of post-truth and suggesting that we can make up our
09:57own facts and we can make up our own information for you to believe and take what's
10:01appealing to you and convenient and speaks to you emotionally rather than what is
10:05actually known and truthful.
10:08Stephanie, we'll have to leave it there for now.
10:09But thank you so much for being with us on the programme this evening.
10:13That's Dr Stephanie Westcott, a lecturer at Monash University Faculty of Education.
10:20Well, that is it from us.
Comments